Indra Lal Roy, DFC

Dear LaddieThank you for volunteering to join the Royal Flying Corps in 1917.

A brave decision for an 18 year old Indian national at school in London.How proud your parents must have been, and worried for your safety.

And when you crash-landed in France just 5 months later, they must have felt that their worst fears had come to pass.

They thought you were dead and laid you out in a morgue.

What a surprise you gave everyone, banging on the locked door and shouting for help in your schoolboy French.

You had to wait until May 1918 to be allowed back in the air just weeks after the Royal Flying Corps had become the Royal Air Force. In June you joined No. 40 Squadron in France and shot down so many planes you became India’s first air ace.

But a dog fight on July 22 ended with you crashing to the ground, ending your short life at the age of 19.

The award of a posthumous Distinguished Flying Cross was our way of saying ‘thank you’.

The citation in the London Gazette in September 1918 praised you as 'a very gallant and determined officer' whose 'remarkable skill and daring' had enabled him on occasion to shoot down 'two enemy machines in one patrol'.

Thank you for being a member of the Royal Air Force, and for your part in helping to win The Great War.And thank you for your example of service to our nation.